Upon the re-release of the band's earliest work, we talk to co-founder Kevin Drew about his past collaborations while he, uh, cleans himself

During the four or five times you watched our Minka Kelly video, you may have noticed the song playing in the background. It's "Forced to Love," one of our favorite songs off Broken Social Scene's most recent studio release, Forgiveness Rock Record. If you are as hungry for more lo-fi anthems as we are, you will be happy to learn Broken Social Scene prototype K.C. Accidental re-released Anthem for the Could've Been Pills and Captured Anthems for an Empty Bathtub on October 26th. We caught up with co-founder Kevin Drew in the tub and talked to him about honesty in music and the collaborative nature of Social Scene.

ESQUIRE:You're nearing the end of your tour. Where are you now, morale-wise?

KEVIN DREW: We're a little upset today because we just spent six weeks with The Sea and Cake, and we just had such a lovely time with them, so I think we're just getting a little Sunday school sentimental and thinking about listening to the Violent Femmes song "Good Feeling" sixteen times.

ESQ:Do you have a lot of experience with Sunday school?

KD: When I say Sunday school, I'm not talking about the Christian aspect, I'm talking about the "School of Sunday," where you're a little bummed. You know, that feeling of after the high school dance or something.

ESQ:Your musical friends are like a who's who of everyone's favorite bands. Would you rather work with someone who was a friend or someone who is an amazing musician?

KD: Some of them were friends, and still are, and others of them I met during this whole music process. It's interesting, I had some preconceived notions about — sorry, I'm in the bath, so if you hear any bath sounds...

ESQ:I was wondering.

KD: I've always wanted to work with my peers. And I can say that I've successfully worked, or played, with everybody I wanted to play with. I never shot for the Bowies or U2 or anybody like that. That was never on my wish list. We did this show in the wintertime with forty-two musicians, half Canadian, half pretty much from the New York scene, doing Neil Young covers. It was put on by this gentleman named Hal Willner, who has a long history. Pretty wild man. He brought Lou Reed to the show, and Elvis Costello — they played. I just kept my head down and let them lead. But they were very kind. And they hung out. And then suddenly you play with these greats and you're like, "They were nice." I don't have anything to do with people's vanities. You can tell right away who's a real one and who's a not. And you can tell right away who's in music for the right reasons and who's not. And generally, I find everybody has a pretty good understanding of what the lifestyle is.

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ESQ:What's your understanding of the lifestyle?

KD: The first understanding you have is that no one understands it except you guys. People don't get that it's a job, they don't get what the work takes. And that's just because you're living a dream, so everyone who's observing it from the outside can't really empathize with how much work it is because you're fortunate. And it's a kind of competition with yourself to stay away from all of the excess, whether it's booze or drugs or just the late nights with the addiction to watching the sun rise in some weird part of the world. But when you meet the other musicians, there's generally a spiritual exhaustion that you connect with.

ESQ:You're re-releasing Anthem for the Could've Been Pills and Captured Anthems for an Empty Bathtub. Do you ever listen to it, just to see how much you've evolved?

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KD: Yeah, because we never had K.C. Accidental on vinyl. So it was very exciting to go and listen to the test presses. I think Charles [Spearin] just put it right. We were young, so you have to understand when I tell you this statement. We sat and we had a conversation before we made the first record, and you have to understand, we were about 20 years old. And he just said, "Let's make honest music. And let's really try and screw around and revolutionize pop." Now obviously, we were a couple of kids dreaming in their parents' laundry room, and we never got to the status of a lot of bands out there that are killing it and playing for stadiums and rocking out with their pop music. But I like the process of how we stayed within what we really wanted to do with melodies. It's a very melodic album. And there's a lot of repetition that became the sort of driving force behind Social Scene. Because that was something I had embedded in me. It just never seemed that difficult to play music or write some songs. That's what kind of resonates and makes it very easy for people to get attracted to that. And that's how we started playing with so many people. That you know. Whether it's Feist or Emily and James [from Metric] or Amy and Evan [from Stars]. I think people are attracted to adding onto a cycle that's already moving melodically.

ESQ:So you think of your work as being on a continuum?

KD: I think there's a very familiar sound to the work that I've been doing. And it's because there are only so many ways that I can convey music. And that's why I've relied so heavily in the last few years on other people's inputs. That's how Social Scene has become what it is. We listen to each other.

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